There are a lot of questions going into the September 23rd second season premiere of ABC’s Agents of SHIELD, but the biggest is whether the series can be as good as it was last season, post Captain America: Winter Soldier, or whether we will have to suffer through another 15-episode slog to get to the episodes that are tied into the Marvel movie universe, or even Agent Carter, which will kick off in the late fall?

One thing is for sure, for me at least, is that — after giving up on the show at the midseason premiere of the first season, only to get sucked back in the spring — I’m willing to give it a few episodes based on the strength of the final 7 episodes last year, plus the possibility that Guardians of the Galaxy could play into the storyline. Also, if we want to know what happened to SHIELD between the end of Captain America and Avengers: Age of Ultron, it feels almost like the ABC series is necessary.

And that’s how the bastards get us! (Plus, I’m a sucker for Evil Ward)

Brett Dalton’s performance seemed to get 10 times better once he finally turned heel. Bit lazy comparing it to another Whedon show, but it really was like when 1998-era wooden David Boreanaz became Angelus and suddenly was one of the highlights of the show. This all being said, I’m not sure how they can explain him still being a cast regular within the plot of the show, since it seemed like his arc was distinctly concluded last season.

To me that is going to be the toughest pill to swallow come next season. The only way I can think of is the fact that the world becomes less black and white. SHIELD technically doesn’t exist, it’s a terrorist organization. Teaming up with former Hydra members makes sense, and doing some bad shit to get good shit done makes sense too.

Making the entire world murkier, like Angel when he teamed up with Wolfram & Hart would be the best possible scenario to keep Bad Ward around. If anyone can figure it out, it’s a Whedon, and he can go around the corner when he wants and ask Joss HOW he can possibly do this. No doubt Joss was in the meetings of the general direction of the show, he won’t put up with it getting too sloppy.

Even though idiot fans of Buffy still say when he stopped being showrunner for a minute it went to hell, I don’t agree. With the movies dictating the big marquee events coming into next year and Agents providing the Backstory I’m fucking watching, and I hope they can make it great like last year.

Can they recast the Tripp actor before season 2? That guy can’t say normal words without stumbling over them. In a show that took so long to find its feet, one of the only redeeming qualities was the charm of some its actors. Now Ward (who is the second, if not first best actor on the show) is no longer on the team, so they replace him with inarticulate McGoo